maven -X log

Maven 1.0.2 is using ANT 1.5.3-1, which depends on (among others) the NetComponents.jar (http://www.savarese.org/oro/index.html).

Looking at your ${maven.home}/bin/forehead.conf file, you will see that the [root] classloader loads the ANT libraries, while the [root.maven] classloader is loading all other JARs in the lib and lib/endorsed directories.

Since classloaders can only see up the class loading hierarchy, the ANT classes can't see those classes loaded as a result of the <dependencies> tags within your projects.

SOLUTION (may be others?):
Get a copy of NetComponents.jar and load it in the [root] classloader

Note: Mave doesn't use the environmental CLASSPATH variable, so adding NetComponents.jar there won't work.

I couldn't get the NetComponents.jar dependency to load into the root classloader using the following in my <dependency> tag in the POM:

<properties>
<classloader>root</classloader>
</properties>

Does anyone know if this dependecy property is valid and implemented?

I couldn't get the NetComponents.jar dependency to load into the root classloader using the following in my <dependency> tag in the POM:

<properties>
<classloader>root</classloader>
</properties>

Does anyone know if this dependecy property is valid and implemented?

Yes it is supposed to work.
It's often used in plugins.

site:ftpdeploy does nothing with me either.
No exception, no output, no ftping.

Using the ftp tag in maven.xml doesn't work either.

Local ftp from the command line works.

Fix for maven 1.1 (using ant 1.6.4)

Fixed for maven 1.1.

It must be documented that ftpdeploy will work only with maven 1.1. It is impossible to make it work with maven 1.0 because of the need of netComponents.